Because of their effectiveness and high returns on investment, anti-ethylene products should be used on ethylene-sensitive products at any cost, said George Staby, president of Perishables Research Organization. Knowing the cost differences between silver thiosulfate (STS) and 1-methylcyclopropene (MCP) may help decide which one to use, he said.
MCP
Probably the most common way to use MCP has been to treat trailers filled with boxes of cut flowers or plants. As long as the boxes or wet packs are loaded on pallets, this system can work well.
The reported cost to treat a trailer is about $150 using bulk MCP, he said. Assuming there are 400 boxes of ethylene-sensitive species in a trailer, an MCP treatment would cost about 37.5 cents per box.
The new MCP sachets cost about 22 cents each at the grower level. Using two sachets per box, the cost to treat 400 boxes is 44 cents per box or $176 for all boxes.
STS
The chemical cost to make 1 liter of STS solution is about 6.4 cents. Assuming that 250 stems can be treated with 1 liter of STS, that’s only 6.4 cents per box.
If a grower treated 400 boxes with STS and each box had 250 stems, the total chemical cost would be $25.60.
“Depending on which treatment procedures are utilized, MCP can be from 1.5 to 8.5 times more expensive than STS, assuming there are no extra labor costs associated with the STS treatments,” Staby said. “However, these cost differences would be reduced or possibly even disappear due to increased labor costs if STS treatment required an additional processing step.”
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For more: George Staby, Perishables Research Organization,